Donald Trump has destroyed US public health with breathtaking speed. Here’s what’s coming next, and how Canada can prepare.
Since the inauguration of Donald Trump on Jan. 20, the greatest health sciences organizations in the world have been first silenced, then frozen or outright destroyed. The scale, speed and stupidity of the destruction have been breathtaking.
The Trump regime is doing this to its own people, especially those in states that voted for Trump, but the shock is being felt around the world.
It is a safe prediction that Trump’s attack on health science will result in the loss of hundreds of thousands of lives. And millions of lives will be diminished.
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And how will Canada fare when Trump’s tariff wars affect the costs of drugs and vaccines? We’ll be bombarded with fake news on social media platforms, and Canadian researchers will be under intense pressure to develop domestic equivalents to the immense pharmacopoeia the United States has built up in the past 80 years.
Canada doesn’t need to pick up the slack. The rest of the world, including Canada, needs to pick up the slack. This could take a while, but there are drug researchers in Canada and Europe, and other parts of the world. They are being presented with an advantage when Trump incentivizes investment in their existing pharmaceutical industry. Ramp up time may be an issue, especially if investors think America is going to return to its old behavior within 4 years. If they don’t believe that, they may well invest heavily and early, which could be a win for all of us.
(2 of the 3 first COVID vaccines originated outside the US.)